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What impact did collectivisation
have on the peasants?
L/O – To evaluate the effect of collectivisation
on peasants
Summary Questions
2.
3.
6.
7.
1. What were the 3 types of collective farm?
Why was collectivisation seen as the solution to the
agricultural problems in Russia?
Why did Stalin carry out collectivisation so rapidly?
4. Who were kulaks?
5. Who were the ‘Twenty-Five Thousanders’?
What methods were used to ‘liquidate the kulaks’?
How and why did peasants resist collectivisation?
Did we meet our learning objective?
L/O – To identify the key features of
collectivisation
Impact of Collectivisation
• By the end of February 1930, the party
claimed that half of all peasant households
had been collectivised – a stunning success.
• In reality it was disaster on a huge scale – the
most efficient peasant farmers had been shot
or deported, food production disrupted and
25-30% of all cattle, pigs and sheep had been
slaughtered (or eaten by peasants).
• Peasants who had been forced into
collectives were in no mood to begin sowing
season and the level of resistance remained
high.
Stalin backtracks…
• Knowing that peasant resistance could lead
to the collapse of grain production, Stalin
backtracked. He wrote an article for Pravda
in March 1930 saying that officials had
moved too fast. They had become ‘dizzy with
success’.
• There was truth in this. Young, ferocious and
militant urban activists got carried away,
competing with each other to see who could
get the most households into collectives.
• Central government seemed to have little
direct control over what was happening.
…Stalin outmanoeuvres the peasants
• Stalin called for a return to the voluntary
principle and an end to coercion. Given the
choice, many peasants abandoned the new
collective farms and went back to farming for
themselves.
• But as soon as the harvest was gathered in,
Stalin restarted the campaign to collectivise.
• In 1931, peasants were forced back into
collectives and by the end of the year, over
50% of households had been collectivised.
The famine of 1932-34
• Despite problems, the government
continued to requisition grain. 22.8 million
tons of grain had been collected by the end
of 1931 – enough to feed the cities and
export.
• This had taken place against a huge drop in
grain production.
• Party activists lacked farming knowledge and
the skills to run collectives properly. There
was not enough animals to pull the ploughs,
and not enough tractors. There was even a
drought in the USSR during 1931.
The famine of 1932-34
• By spring 1932, famine appeared in Ukraine and
other areas. From late 1932-1934, the USSR was
exposed to a famine which killed millions of
peasants.
• Robert Conquest in The Harvest of Sorrow
(1986), puts the figure as high as 7 million. The
scale of the famine was unacknowledged by the
Soviet regime so is hard to give exact numbers.
• It did not want to admit that collectivisation had
failed to deliver. But Conquest argues that the
regime also used collectivisation and famine
deliberately to break peasant resistance.
The famine of 1932-34
• The Ukraine was hit particularly hard. It was
set high targets for grain procurement in
1931 and 1932 (over 7 million tons per year)
even though the total amount being
produced was falling rapidly.
• Thousands of extra officials, backed by the
OGPU, were drafted in to root out hidden
stocks of grain being held by peasants.
• Requisitioning gangs condemned hundreds
of thousands to starvation. Grain was often
left rotting in huge dumps while people
starved.
The famine of 1932-34
• Some historians do not directly
blame Stalin however most
acknowledge that the
Communist government was
determined to procure grain at
any cost.
• This is proved by the continued
export of grain to other
countries – 1.73 million tons in
1932 and only slightly less in
1933 – the worst years of the
famine.
The famine of 1932-34
• Strict laws were also introduced to ensure
that grain was handed over. A law of 7th
August 1932 (Law of Seventh-Eights)
prescribed a ten-year sentence for stealing
‘socialised’ property.
• Decrees in August and December laid down
prison sentences of up to ten years for
peasants selling meat and grain before
quotas were fulfilled.
• Internal passports were introduced to stop
peasants fleeing from famine-hit areas.
The famine of 1932-34
• The end results of the government’s policy
was the death of millions of peasants in the
Ukraine, the north Caucasus, Kazakhstan and
other parts of the USSR.
• It is clear that the famine of 1932-34 was
man-made and a direct result of
collectivisation.
• Purging of best peasant farmers, lack of
machinery and fertilisers, lack of know-how,
resistance of peasants, slaughtered animals,
and continued government grain
requisitioning.
Collectivisation after 1934
• At end of 1934, 70% of peasant households
were in collectives, rising to 90% in 1936.
Individual peasant landholdings were
gradually squeezed out.
• Grain production began to recover slowly
but did not exceed pre-collectivisation
levels until 1935. Meat production didn’t
exceed pre-collectivisation levels until after
1955.
• Grain procurement continued at a high
level throughout the 1930s whatever the
harvest.
Collectivisation after 1934
• The main problem was lack of incentive –
peasants had nothing to work for. They
were supposed to get a share in profits of
the farm but there never were any profits.
• The only resistance left was passive
resistance – apathy, neglect and petty
insubordination. The state could do little
about it.
• Private plots on collective became very
important. It was the only way peasants
could earn something for themselves.
Collectivisation after 1934
• The state did not stop this as it needed food.
Estimates say that private plots provided 52%
of all vegetables, 57% fruit, 70% meat and 71%
of milk, butter, honey and wool.
• Peasants referred to collectivisation as the
‘second serfdom’. They were tied to land they
did not own. They could not leave without
permission. Draconian laws would punish them
if they stepped out of line.
• Fitzpatrick (1994) in Stalin’s Peasants, maintains
that peasants developed all sorts of ways of
subverting the farms. They had been broken
but not totally crushed.
Source Analysis Questions
Read the hand-out and use Sources 1-9 to answer the
following questions:
1. What impression do you get of the dekulakisation and
collectivisation process from Sources 1-6?
2. Given Sholokhov’s background (Source 7), how valuable
do you think his novel is as historical evidence?
3. Look at Sources 8-9. Do they change your answer?
4. What justification or explanation of the process is
provided by Communists in Sources 7-9?
5. What value, if any, does a novel like Sholokhov’s have for
historians looking at Collectivisation?
Summary Questions
1. Why did Stalin halt, and then restart the collectivisation
process in 1930-31?
2. What were the consequences of collectivisation?
3. What were the causes of the famine of 1932-34?
4. What happened in agriculture after 1934?
5. What laws were introduced to ensure that grain was
handed over?
6. How many people died in the famine?
Did we meet our learning objective?
L/O – To evaluate the effect of collectivisation
on peasants